It is time for the Mind Of My Own team to reflect, having just run two customer seminars in as many weeks.  The seminars take months of intensive planning, co-ordination and collaboration – then they are over in a flash. We always make sure we apply all our learning from one event to the next so each one is even better than the last. A recent blog by Thomas Weatherley was a timely read in helping us review and reflect.

The voice of the child seminars

Our seminars are designed to generate informed discussion on the key issues affecting young people and how we respond to their needs, hopes, fears and opinions. We know that children’s participation leads to better care and stronger safeguarding and we put on the events so people can hear how Mind Of My Own apps support a range of service providers to ensure children’s voices are being heard and acted upon.

The recent seminars took place in North Wales and London. In Wales, the attendees came from North Welsh local authorities and advocacy services, while the London event attracted over 24 attendees from ten different fostering agencies.

So what did we love and learn from our seminars?

Audiences

Loved. It was so wonderful to have so many people in the room at one time with incredible and varied experiences. This always sparks fantastic conversations and significant positive networking. In both events it was clear that the attendees were there because they believe children’s voices should be taken seriously

Learned. We were so excited by the overwhelming response to the event, that we found it too hard to turn people away, next time we know we can make the experience a little more comfortable by running two separate events with lower numbers in each.

Content 

Loved. Our event speakers! We’re super proud of the Mind Of My Own Community and always expanding it with unique perspectives. Bringing people together like this gives an opportunity to share the great learnings people have amassed over their years in social care (our speakers have had over a combined 100 years of experience!) We learnt that true participation in Wales runs through all of their services. The focus on inclusive participative practice was evident throughout the event so it’s great to have a Welsh language version to support this. 

Learned. The running order could do with a little fine tuning. It’s always difficult to know what information will be most helpful to a large group of people. We want to make sure we are always sharing the most pertinent information to the people in the room and work hard to ensure we test our material beforehand to get the right balance.

Travel

Loved. Naturally we love how beautiful Wales is and are fortunate to be able to travel and stay there when running these events

Learned. It’s fair to say that when you think you have planned for everything there is always something that you can’t control, especially in North Wales in February #moresnowploughs please!

We are looking forward to putting on more events throughout the year, loving and learning from them! Coming up are a second London event and another in Cardiff. As an agile company we always want the way we work to develop continuously and we are delighted that we have found a way to show the benefits of the Mind Of My Own Community to people who have not yet joined us.

Natalie Ward